I've found that that the people who most rail against "corporate media" just like the corporate media that they swallow up.

Shall we assume that you're the exception to the rule?

If you turn to the internet and blogs, you are relying on people who wear their agenda on their sleeves and don't even attempt to show the other side. Or if they claim to be "unbiased", they get their news from the "corporate media".

There is no independent media. Everyone is getting paid by someone.

True. But I like to think that you can apply almost everything to a scale. And some outlets are getting paid a lot more than others. Some outlets have a lot more pull than others. Some of those outlets are heavily invested in things that don't line up with the interests of the general public. Some get caught lying a lot more than others. Some fess up to mistakes more than others. Some are trying a lot harder to stamp out their competitors than others. There are a lot of other indicators you can use to try to decide how much to scrutinize or trust a source. Trusting new sources blindly is stupid, but so is getting deceived over and over and still trusting the source. And so is making sweeping generalizations. Just because I don't trust mainstream media, doesn't mean I don't question other sources. Because that would be stupid.

A lot of people do swallow up alternative media without thinking twice. A lot of people don't. A lot of people can't get over the "my reality is better than yours" mentality, which can be just as frustrating as listening to indoctrinated sheep. If you are unwilling to change your mind about something, or even unwilling to entertain ideas that you didn't come up with yourself, you could still be part of the problem.

jfg wrote:I still think local news broadcasts and local newspapers are fairly unbiased at least outside of the op-eds but unfortunately people have replaced them with the cable and blog slants.

I tend to agree that the smaller the outlet, the less biased they are but a lot of them are owned by the very same people who own things like FOX and CNN.

That said, I don't think cable news is in the business of shaping opinions and creating thought processes. They are just reinforcing people's thoughts and that's why they have huge ratings. It's not a problem that people aren't thinking anymore, I'd say as a society that's happening more than ever.

A few years ago I might have agreed, but now I think a lot of things that get hyped are the things that people tune in to. I don't think people would care so much about the Kardashians or iPhones or Gucci bags if that stuff wasn't hyped by the media as being so relevant.

I don't think it's a coincidence that political scandals get only a tiny fraction of the play that the Kardashians get. If the media reported on politics as much as they do about useless crap, I think more people would pay attention to things that actually affect them. I think the things that get the most attention are a product of what the media decides to hype and not necessarily what the people take interest in and the media subsequently reports on.

The problem is that nobody seems to be questioning their values and ideals anymore.

I do still agree with this though. Ultimately its up to the people to decide whats important, but the media know how to play them and are all too happy to do so. Even this whole Trayvon thing is propogating racism by instilling emotional responses in people and getting them mad at the "other side". So much deception by the media and people are only getting mad at each other.

Did I read it right that this Zimmerman guy is hispanic? Obviously that doesn't dismiss the possibility of the events being racially motivated, but I've seen several clips of people calling this a typical white on black hate crime. That part irks me. Regardless of whether Zimmerman is caucasian, hispanic, indian, or chinese, he is still a grown man who used lethal force on an unarmed teenager. I'm not passing judgement on either since I don't know jack about what went on, but from what I've read, and now after seeing the video of Zimmerman mere hours after the event appearing to be very uninjured, I have my doubts that he was in the right. It sure appears as though this "common knowledge" about Zimmerman having a "broken nose and huge cut on the back of his skull" is as much a fabrication as anything that's been reported.

People can play the hypothetical games all day long, both the media and people here, but the fact is none of us were there. Did Zimmerman follow, attempt to detain, and execute an unarmed minor in cold blood? Possibly. Did Trayvon take offense to Zimmerman suspecting him of doing something criminal, and become physically combative with him, causing Zimmerman to defend himself with lethal force. That's also very possible. I have a feeling it was something in between. But again, I wasn't there.

Facts not in dispute:1. Zimmerman, in his role as a community watch participant, found Martin to be suspicious, dialed 911 and informed them of his concerns, and then followed Martin after emergency services asked him not to do so.2. Zimmerman expressed concern that the police would not find/locate the person he was following if he ceased following.3. Zimmerman exited his vehicle and ended up in an altercation with Martin.4. Zimmerman used lethal force against Martin.5. Martin had a legitimate reason to be on foot in that neighborhood: Zimmerman's initial suspicions were unfounded.

Zimmerman alleges that after he exited his vehicle, Martin attacked him and made him fear for his own imminent death. Since Martin was unarmed, he is claiming to have believed that Martin was going to kill him with his bare hands.

776.031 Use of force in defense of others.—A person is justified in the use of force, except deadly force, against another when and to the extent that the person reasonably believes that such conduct is necessary to prevent or terminate the other’s trespass on, or other tortious or criminal interference with, either real property other than a dwelling or personal property, lawfully in his or her possession or in the possession of another who is a member of his or her immediate family or household or of a person whose property he or she has a legal duty to protect. However, the person is justified in the use of deadly force only if he or she reasonably believes that such force is necessary to prevent the imminent commission of a forcible felony. A person does not have a duty to retreat if the person is in a place where he or she has a right to be.

776.041 Use of force by aggressor.—The justification described in the preceding sections of this chapter is not available to a person who:(1) Is attempting to commit, committing, or escaping after the commission of, a forcible felony; or(2) Initially provokes the use of force against himself or herself, unless:(a) Such force is so great that the person reasonably believes that he or she is in imminent danger of death or great bodily harm and that he or she has exhausted every reasonable means to escape such danger other than the use of force which is likely to cause death or great bodily harm to the assailant; or(b) In good faith, the person withdraws from physical contact with the assailant and indicates clearly to the assailant that he or she desires to withdraw and terminate the use of force, but the assailant continues or resumes the use of force.

Martin was a minor, on foot in a private-property neighborhood where he had a legal right to be. Zimmerman was an adult, armed and following Martin in a vehicle. It's extremely likely that Martin was within his own "Stand Your Ground" right to use non-violent force against Zimmerman, under 776.031. By asserting that Martin did not have a right to be on property where he was an invited guest, Martin could reasonably have assumed that Zimmerman was violating the property rights of the person who invited Martin; as a member of that person's household, Martin had a right to defend her property rights with non-lethal violence.

So, 776.031 says that Martin, feeling personally menaced, has a right to kick Zimmerman's ass in order to get Zimmerman to stop trying to illegally intimidate him into leaving property where he has a right to be.

776.041 says that Zimmerman, by provoking that confrontation, loses his own "stand your ground" rights. He can still use deadly force only if he legitimately believes he will die from the ass-kicking, and has exhausted every means at his disposal to escape the confrontation--including attempts to retreat.

My take:- The conflict should not have happened, and it's Zimmerman's fault as an overzealous neighborhood watch captain that it did happen.- In cases like this where a neighborhood watch captain has made a mistake about whether or not someone else is violating the neighborhood's collective private-property rights, "Stand Your Ground" law is defined such that neither party has a duty to retreat.- By contrast, if Zimmerman's suspicions about Martin had been correct and Martin had been trespassing on private property, Martin's decision to escalate the conflict to violence would have given Zimmerman the right to use deadly force in response.- Since Zimmerman is enforcing property rights on behalf of others and does not have perfect knowledge of who those others might have invited onto the property, he has no way of knowing prior to using deadly force whether or not he has the right to use such force.- Zimmerman guessed wrong.- Zimmerman was in a position of needing to guess because he was trying to enforce property rights for a community so big that he could not reasonably have known who was invited to be on the property and who wasn't.- If Zimmerman is allowed to use force (lethal or otherwise) in situations where he has to guess, and if he still has immunity even in cases where he guesses wrong and uses lethal force to get himself out of a legal ass-kicking at the hands of the other party, then Florida has a law where the narrow right to use lethal force trumps the broader right to use non-lethal force.- To me, that's a broken law, and would effectively legalize duels to the death between two people who both have the legal right to access a Common Element of any communally owned property, as long as the winner is willing to assert that be believed the loser was there illegally and that a punch was thrown prior to the fatal gunshot.

All of this is pretty close to the best-case scenario, too. It's possible Zimmerman is simply lying about having been attacked by Martin, and initiated the scuffle and then shot the kid after he fought back. Likewise, it's possible that the public streets in that gated community are still legally public property, in which case Zimmerman had even less right to confront Martin and Martin had even less duty to retreat from Zimmerman's intimidation.

In my opinion it's actually counterproductive to speculate about why Zimmerman thought that Martin was trespassing. Is it worse if Zimmerman thought Martin was suspicious because he was black than for some other reason? I don't see how. To me all that matters is that Zimmerman made the accusation incorrectly, killed someone in the ensuing confrontation, and is still claiming self defense. You don't know for sure whether someone is allowed to be on the property, you pick a fight with them about it, and then shoot them for throwing a punch that they probably had a legal right to throw? That's messed up regardless of why you decided the issue was worth picking a fight over.

I think that even people who think that statute is good law should be able to agree that you shouldn't be able to claim to be protecting private property when it's a Common Element owned by that large of a community association.

Art, please take your rationalizing, thought, facts, logic, and sensibility, and kindly leave. We have no room for that here. You didn't even mention the hoodie once in your rambling, incoherent babble. This is about the hoodie. The hoodie dammit.